Justin Trudeau apologized Friday for a controversial television interview in which he blamed the country’s problems on Albertans controlling the “socio-democratic” agenda, but he continued to suggest his comments have been misinterpreted.

Several senior Conservative MPs seized on the interview, with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose calling on Trudeau to resign or be fired as the Liberal Party critic for post-secondary education, youth and amateur sport.

The interview, broadcast in 2010 on the French-language television station Tele-Quebec, was resurrected a day earlier in news reports and immediately seized upon by the Conservatives.

Trudeau apologized during a stop in Vancouver, insisting he was really just making a clumsy attack on Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who rose to power as an MP from Calgary.

“I was wrong to relate the area of the country that Mr. Harper is from … with the policies that he has that don’t represent the values of most Canadians,” Trudeau told a gathering of reporters.

In ancient times, when Liberals ruled the land, they could always count on the rival Conservatives to help them out in a pinch. Late in a close election, with a riding – or the country – on the line, some slow-witted right-winger could always be relied on to open his yap and fire a verbal cannonball straight at the party’s hopes. Sometimes it was even on tape.

Now Stephen Harper’s middle-ground Tory troopers have reversed even that role. First David McGuinty denounces Alberta MPs as small-minded lackies of Big Oil who should stick to running local councils and school boards. Then the dauphin himself, Justin Trudeau, worsens the situation on a video that conveniently appears as he and other party worthies are doing their best to steal a seat, and a lot of Tory thunder, in Calgary, heart of the Harper heartland.

“It was wrong to use a shorthand to say Alberta when I was really talking about Mr. Harper’s government, and I’m sorry I did that.”

The Conservatives have used the interview as fodder to attack Trudeau and his party, particularly in Calgary, where a federal byelection scheduled for next week has become more competitive than expected.

When asked how the controversy might affect his party’s byelection chances, Trudeau largely ignored the question, instead accusing the Conservatives of resorting to attacks in a moment of panic over the prospect of losing in the Calgary-Centre byelection.

In a 2010 appearance on the program Les francs-tireurs, Trudeau said: “Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work.”

He also said Canada would be better served if there were more Quebecers than Albertans in charge, arguing “the great prime ministers of the 20th Century” have come from Quebec.

On Friday, Trudeau said his comments about the lack of Quebecers — and the abundance of Albertans — in power was an attempt to urge voters in Quebec to vote for a national party capable of forming government.

“The interview I gave was very much focused on telling Quebecers how very important it was to stop voting for the Bloc Quebecois and to start engaging once again with the national discourse in Canada,” he said.

The Conservatives resumed their attacks Friday, with MPs in Parliament taking turns assailing Trudeau and the Liberals.

The Tories were eager to link the Trudeau interview with comments from David McGuinty, an Ontario MP who resigned as the Liberal party’s natural resources critic earlier this week after accusing Conservative MPs from Alberta of being “shills” for the oil industry. McGuinty said those MPs should “go back” to Alberta.

“We knew, of course, that this anti-Alberta attitude was deeply held in the Liberal party but we did not know how close to the surface it was,” Ambrose, who represents the Alberta riding of Edmonton-Spruce Grove, told Parliament.

This isn’t the first time Trudeau has found himself on the defensive over comments about Quebec.

In a French-language interview in February, Trudeau took issue with the social conservative policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government and indicated he would be in favour of Quebec separating if they continued.

“I always say that if, some time, I believed that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper, and it was going against abortion, and it was going against same-sex marriage, and that it was moving backwards in 10,000 different ways, maybe I would think about making Quebec a country,” said the Montreal-area MP in the weekend interview with Radio-Canada.

“Oh yes. Absolutely. If I no longer recognize Canada. For me, my values, I know them very well. But I believe profoundly in Canada and I know that Quebec within Canada can (restore all this).”

Trudeau, whose father was well known for battling against Quebec independence and opposing many demands for the province to have more power in the federation, also said he was sad to see Quebecers losing their influence in federal government decisions.

“When Quebec is not involved in the governance of this country, this country moves too much toward the right,” he said in the radio interview. “It’s not necessarily that Canadians don’t have the same values as us Quebecers. It’s that there’s a way of seeing social responsibility, openness toward others, a cultural pride here in Quebec that’s necessary for Canada and it saddens me a great deal (to see what’s happening now).”

Trudeau later sought to defend himself in a bizarre press conference in which he spoke in the third-person.

“The question is not why does Justin Trudeau suddenly not love this country because the question is ridiculous,” Trudeau said. “I live this country in my bones in every breath I take, and I’m not going to stand here and somehow defend that I actually do love Canada because we know I love Canada.”

Trudeau also found himself in trouble after swearing at Environment Minister Peter Kent in the House of Commons last December.